Drake sues record label for defamation over Kendrick Lamar diss track
Toronto rapper says UMG's release is responsible for break-ins and a shooting at his home
Toronto rap superstar Drake is suing his record label, Universal Music Group, over rival Kendrick Lamar's diss track Not Like Us.
Drake filed the defamation suit on Wednesday morning in New York City federal court, blaming UMG for publishing and promoting the song, which "falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him."
Drake and Lamar are both signed to the label.
It comes a day after Drake's team withdrew his November petition against UMG and Spotify in which he alleged the companies inflated the song's numbers.
Drake says label published false, dangerous allegations
The latest court filing, obtained by CBC News, details multiple break-ins and attempts at Drake's Toronto home following the song's release, including an incident in which his security guard was shot.
"During the nearly 30 minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive, Drake and others laboured to keep the man alive by applying pressure to the gunshot wound with towels. Blood was everywhere," the filing reads. The suit says nothing like those incidents had happened to Drake or his family in the previous two decades he had been in the public eye.
"They immediately followed, and were proximately caused by, UMG's actions leading up to and on May 4, 2024," the filing says, referencing the date Not Like Us was released.
Police have not made any arrests in the shooting, and a Toronto Police Service spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing.
According to the suit, the rapper tried to inform the label about the harm caused by the song — the cover art includes an image of Drake's house — including having to remove his son from school "due to safety concerns." It claims Drake was told, however, that he "would face humiliation if he brought legal action."
Drake and Lamar's feud resurfaced in March, with the two rappers exchanging diss tracks before Lamar dropped Not Like Us, in which he calls Drake a "certified pedophile" and a "colonizer" who is appropriating Black American hip-hop culture.
The song became the first diss track to reach one billion streams on Spotify and was Apple Music's No. 1 overall track of 2024.
It spent two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and is nominated for five Grammy Awards, including song and record of the year.
Drake has claimed that the track's popularity was not organic, and that UMG took unusual measures to boost its numbers, including the "unprecedented step" of removing its copyright restrictions on YouTube and streaming platform Twitch to ensure content creators would republish it broadly.
Potential impact on Lamar's Super Bowl performance
The suit also claims UMG made "significant financial investments" and ran sophisticated publicity campaigns to get Lamar to perform the song at this year's NFL Super Bowl halftime show, scheduled for Feb. 9 in New Orleans.
Peter Tilem, an attorney with Tilghman Associates in White Plains, N.Y., says the lawsuit could potentially stop Lamar from performing Not Like Us at the Super Bowl.
"I would imagine there will be a motion to stay the distribution or the continued use of this music because of the fact that there's an allegation that it could cause immediate harm, both financial and otherwise."
Tilem said it's "highly unusual" for Drake to file a federal lawsuit against UMG, but that the rapper may have a very strong case in arguing the song's lyrics are false and likely to cause harm.
"When you have an allegation of being involved in pedophilia, then that is really the most insidious type of allegation you can make against someone," Tilem said.
"And if it's not true, if there's a likelihood of not only reputational harm — but from what I understand about this track, it actually is encouraging vigilantism, where there's potential for this to spiral into actual physical harm."
Suit claims label wanted to boost Lamar, devalue Drake
The suit claims UMG had several reasons to boost the track at Drake's expense, apart from direct financial gain.
UMG's Interscope Records owns Lamar's back catalogue, and was incentivized "to prove it could maximize" his sales after recently getting him to enter into a direct licensing agreement, it states.
UMG's contract with Drake, meanwhile, was nearing its end, and by "devaluing Drake's music and brand," it says the label would gain leverage to force Drake to sign a deal that was more favourable to UMG.
"This lawsuit is not about the artist who created Not Like Us," the suit says. "It is, instead, entirely about UMG, the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit and monetize allegations that it understood were not only false, but dangerous."
Paul Parhar, a Toronto radio DJ also known as Mastermind, says he can't think of another instance where a rap beef ended in a lawsuit, and it's likely to draw ire from hip-hop purists. Traditionally, he says "anything goes" in a feud, and defaming one's opponent is part of the game.
On the other hand, he says, while Drake is not going with the rules of engagement, he came into the feud with a lot more to lose than Lamar.
"If Drake was saying, 'When we renew [my contract], you're going to pay me a dollar,' now Universal can say, 'Well, you're not really what you used to be. So we want to pay you one-quarter,'" Parhar said. "So I think he does have kind of a leg to stand on outside of the 'This is a rap beef' thing."
In a statement, a UMG spokesperson told CBC that the lawsuit's claims are untrue, adding that the company has "invested massively" in Drake's music and its employees around the world have "worked tirelessly for many years" to help him achieve historic success.
"Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth 'rap battles' to express his feelings about other artists," the spokesperson said.
"He now seeks to weaponize the legal process to silence an artist's creative expression and to seek damages from UMG for distributing that artist's music.
"We have not and do not engage in defamation — against any individual. At the same time, we will vigorously defend this litigation to protect our people and our reputation, as well as any artist who might directly or indirectly become a frivolous litigation target for having done nothing more that write a song."
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With files from Thomas Daigle, Katie Nicholson and CBC Music